Burning Love
by Cmdr. Gen. Marasco
Summary: A post-Goliath Deryn/Alek lemon. Graphic.   When the Leviathan gets disabled during a battle, Alek comforts a fearful Deryn in the most Darwinist way possible...


**Burning Love**

Aleksander Ferdinand ran along the main corridors of the _Leviathan_ like his life depended upon it. Not that it did; at this point, the only things his life depended upon was luck and the law of averages.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his reason for running; the mad melee of airships, airbeasts, aeroplanes and fabricated creatures that had sprung from the supposed peace talk with the ambassadors of the remaining Clanker nations that Dr. Barlow (and he, by extension of being her aid) had been sent to attend via the_Leviathan_, along with airbeasts from all the other major Darwinist nations.

Almost four months after his parents death, and two months or so since the incident with Goliath and his alliance to Dr. Barlow, it had looked like the war was finally coming to an end.

And the talks had been going well too...until the Americans showed up.

Apparently (from what Alek had managed to pick up from the angry Morse-code flashes he'd seen from some of the arriving American ships) _someone_ had forgotten to tell them this meeting was happening. And they weren't happy about it.

To make matters worse, without warning, one of the American airbeasts had attacked the Clanker airships, which promptly fought back in self-defense, and everything deteriorated into a melee that was happening now.

In the opening moments of the battle, the _Leviathan_ had taken a burst from an airborne Tesla Cannon (though how such a contraption worked was beyond Alek), leaving it with all of its engines dead directly in the middle of the brawl. Though Alek was personally glad the shock hadn't lit the ship aflame.

The bolt of lightning had also scattered the few strafing hawks and flechette bats that had remained aboard and shut down the lights used to direct them, meaning the _Leviathan_ couldn't run and, aside from the air guns normally used to shot down aeroplanes and gyrothopters, couldn't fight back.

It had also seemed to affected the great bound whale that was the base of the _Leviathan_: the dorsal hydrogen vents refused to open, meaning an emergency decent was out of the question. Though it may have been the airbeast's choice not to drop down; it seemed to sense the danger it was in and was moving itself away from the fight as quickly as it could using the faster winds at this altitude. Just like the last time it had been hit with lightning.

But Captain Hobbes had feared that wouldn't be fast enough.

Fifteen minutes earlier, he'd given his final order; all hands abandon ship.

Except it wasn't truly all hands; even though there were enough Huxley's and parachutes for all the crew to escape on, there were those who, even in the face of apparent fiery doom, refused to abandon the airbeast.

Alek was among this later group, more for the fact that he didn't know how to use a parachute (he hadn't been given formal airman training), and though he was now technically a Darwinist and had been one for almost a half year, he still wasn't very interested in strapping into a Huxley, even if he'd had any real idea how to fly one.

He wasn't alone; currently several of the ship's engineers were out on the engines with Mr. Hirst, braving the mad combat around them in an attempt to get them restarted again.

If it had been Alek's choice, he would be out there as well. But Dr. Barlow had made it _very_ clear that he was to stay inside the _Leviathan_, no matter what happened, and find a way off if possible. She obviously didn't want one of her new recruits burning to death before she could actually find a use for him, though she hadn't said so out loud.

Alek wasn't stupid; he knew he was only marginally safer inside than out and there probably wasn't a way off the beast that he knew how to use, but before he could argue, Barlow was gone, off to attempt to put her knowledge of the _Leviathan_'s fabrication to use in saving it, and Alek had found himself running towards the aft of the _Leviathan_.

He knew all too well where he was going; the quarters that, when had last been aboard, had belonged to the two midshipmen.

Newkirk was probably gone (he'd never liked the godless beasts the Darwinists used, something Alek could still sympathize with, and had probably been one of the first off the _Leviathan_), as were any of the other new middies that had rotated in when the _Leviathan_ had returned to London and Alek had left.

But he had a strong feeling (almost a physical one) that _she _would still be aboard.

He had to find her.

Alek pounded down the corridor, lungs heaving painfully in his chest. He found himself wishing the _Leviathan_ wasn't so damn _long_!

And then he was there; before him was the fabricated wood door to the midshipman's quarters.

Alek's heart pounded in his ears. The only things he could hear were the trip-hammer rattle of his heart, the gasping of his lungs. Without hesitation, he shouldered the door open, not bothering to check if it was locked. Thankfully for his shoulder, it wasn't.

As he'd expected, it wasn't empty; curled in the far corner was the one Darwinist Alek actually cared for; the girl who he'd known for months as Dylan Sharp.

Of course she would be here; this had been her one true home for the first months of the war. This room probably felt safe to her.

But God's wounds she looked pathetic. Blond hair disheveled and slightly frazzled from the Tesla Cannon strike, face soaking with tears...Alek's insides curled in on themselves. He stopped dead, unsure of what to do.

Then she noticed him.

"Alek?" She asked, surprise filling her face. Alek swallowed.

"Deryn." He replied hoarsely. His throat was unexpectedly dry and tight.

He wasn't really sure what he'd been expecting to happen when he got to the middy's quarters. He hadn't even really known if she would be there at all. Just that something inside him told him to go to her.

But he knew it hadn't been for Deryn to launch herself at him, lock her arms around his waist in what felt like a death grip and force her mouth to him with enough force to shove his head backward.

_What in blazes?_

Alek reeled in shock, almost loosing his balance as the force of Deryn's embrace drove him against the wall. He fought back, half of him trying to free himself to say something and the other half apparently attempting to choke her with his tongue. He could taste the salty tang of her tears in his mouth and smell a nauseatingly strong aroma of rum.

For a moment, he wasn't inside the middy's quarters; he was on the spine of the airbeast, with rain soaking his skin and a dull ache filling his head, blood running down his face. The living cold eating into his flesh and bones and soul...

The first time Deryn had kissed him, so many months ago.

After a full minute and a half Alek snapped back into the real world and pulled free of Deryn, gasping for air, dizzy from lack of oxygen and the strong alcoholic fumes coming from the girl. He only got a short reprieve before Deryn grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled his face close to hers. At this range, Alek could quite easily see the confused emotions boiling in Deryn's blue eyes. He tensed, anticipating a slap or a punch or some other physical strike. He remembered quite well how hard Deryn could hit...

Yet he found himself thinking _She's __so __pretty __when __she's__ like__ this..._.

"Why the barking hell are you still here?" Deryn spat, pulling Alek painfully closer, actually lifting him a couple centimeters off the deck to make up for the height difference between them. "Didn't you hear the abandon ship order?"

"Of course I did! I came back for you!" Alek stuttered, caught off guard by Deryn's sudden, inexplicable anger. "I couldn't just leave you behind!"

"You daft Clanker prince! I can get off a hydrogen breather fine by myself, thank you very much." Deryn replied, every syllable of her Scottish lilt dripping with sarcasm.

"Then why are you still here?" Alek shot back without thinking. He already knew the answer; Deryn would never willingly abandon the _Leviathan_. It was her home.

"I-"

From the battle outside came a loud _whumph_ noise that drowned out the rest of what Deryn was saying. Alek and Deryn both paused and glanced out the window behind them on instinct.

The sky, which had begun darkening as twilight approached, was lit up with the cheery glow of airships burning. One tumbled down past the _Leviathan_, close enough to see the flesh and bones of a Darwinist airbeast wreathed in fire.

Deryn's voice cracked and died as the beastie hurtled earthward, turning into a sick-sounding gulp and sob. Alek, unsure of what else to do, pulled her into a tight hug.

"God's wounds." He said quietly. "Don't look."

In response, Deryn buried her face into his chest until the flaming carcass had sunk out of sight, fingers digging into Alek's shirt.

"Barking spiders." She sobbed. Alek pulled her closer.

The light from the burning ship died, dropping the middy's quarters into the gathering darkness once more. Deryn seemed to gather herself, made one more hard sob, and freed herself from Alek's embrace. As much as he would have liked to keep her close to him, Alek let her go.

There was a short pause, during which they exchanged a quick glance, and then Deryn burst out laughing. Not a healthy, joy-filled laugh. More of a high-pitched keening, one that grated on Alek's ears.

The laugh of someone gone totally and utterly mad.

Alek's insides seized in horror. He'd figured Deryn had been a little on edge in the recent past, considering how close her secret had come to being revealed to the entire world thanks to that bum-rag reporter Eddie Malone. But he'd thought she'd shaken it off now that she was officially working for Barlow. But that had been six months ago. Certainly she should have shaken it off by now.

Had he been wrong? Had she finally gone "cracked in her attic"?

"Deryn? Are you okay?" He asked quietly.

Deryn's laugh died down, leaving her with a brilliant, horrifying grin on her face.

"Oh, aye." She said, clutching her sides. "Just blistering fine. I'm stuck on a disabled hydrogen breather in the middle of a battle. More than likely, I'll end up burning, just like my Da."

So _that_ was it; she was afraid to die like her father. _The __only __thing __Deryn __Sharp __feared __was__ fire_.

Understandable, current circumstances accounted for.

"I think you might be drunk as well." Alek couldn't think of anything else to say, though he probably shouldn't have said _that_. But, as if to prove him right, the airbeast shifted again, and half a dozen empty glass bottles rolled nosily from under Deryn's bunk. She had obviously raided the underdeck storeroom where the officer's wine and spirits had been secured.

Deryn burst out laughing again, making Alek

"Aye, maybe just a squik." She said. Her grin had gone from horrifying to what she would undoubtedly title "clart-snarfing".

"But at least I have you here with me, your princeliness."

Before Alek could speak a reply or correct her again about the title she still addressed him by, Deryn launched herself at him again and claimed his lips. This time Alek saw his chance to pull Deryn out of whatever dark pit she'd sunk herself into, and he kissed her back, hard enough to bend her backwards.

He felt more relaxed now; this was known territory, not the strange maze of Deryn's fear-filled mind. One of the bonuses of being Dr. Barlow's assistant and having a friend with a still-healing busted knee was a lot of free time. He and Deryn had been kissing plenty recently over the last couple months, so much so that at first Alek had thought something might be wrong with both of them. But Dr. Barlow (after accidentally walking in on them at one point) had called it "simple biology" and shrugged. She seemed surprisingly fine with his and Deryn's relationship. Alek sometimes wondered if the good doctor was secretly encouraging it for her own purposes.

Not that Alek could care if she was.

His hands moved on their own, sliding into Deryn's hair and up and under the back of her middy uniform. He hadn't done this before, but his fingers were almost numb from the high-altitude cold, and Deryn's skin was so warm and soft...

After a moment of hesitation and a sharp intake of breath through her nose, Deryn returned the favor, slipping her small, cold hands under the front his shirt. Cold and small, but not feminine; he could feel the rough patches and calluses that had formed from her time in the air. He liked it.

"It's okay, Deryn. We'll be fine. It'll be alright." He found himself saying, breaking his kiss long enough to gasp the words out around her mouth.

"Aye..." She mumbled. "Alek..."

"_Ich __liebe__ dich_, _Deryn_."

I love you, Deryn.

He hadn't been meaning to say it. It just slipped out. For a moment, he thought she hadn't heard him, or she wasn't able to understand the German.

But Deryn pulled back (much to Alek's disappointment) and locked eyes once more.

"Please tell me that means what I think it does." She asked. "And no secrets."

Alek swallowed again. No choice about this really. He had made her a promise.

"I does."

Deryn looked away for a moment, and Alek could see tears at the corners of her eyes. Cautiously, he raised his hand to wipe them away, but she twisted her face away and did it herself. When she turned back and faced him again it wasn't confusion he saw in her eyes, but conviction, cold and solid as steel. He felt one of her hands slide down from the front of his shirt to his belt.

Alek's guts coiled up on themselves again. His heart felt like it was skipping every other beat.

"Took you blistering long enough to say it." She said, voice barely a whisper. "Now prove it, Clanker."

There it was; what he'd been secretly hoping and dreading she'd ask.

Even in this situation, Alek found himself surprised. Did Deryn honestly still not believe he cared for her? Or was that just the spirits she'd drunk talking...

But he hadn't said that he'd loved her, had he? Not once during the whole six months they'd been a couple. He had thought that kissing her would be enough. He'd apparently been wrong.

"Oh? And how would I go around doing that?" He asked, sounding a lot more confident that he actually felt.

"Simple." Deryn replied plainly. "If I'm going to burn, I'm going to burn as a lass, doing what I want with who I want, sod everything and everyone." She pulled Alek closer, so that her eyes were centimetres from his own. He could feel her breath on his cheeks and the smell of rum on her breath made his head light. "That would be shagging and you, just to be clear."

As if to drive home her point, Deryn, in true Darwinist form, slipped her hand into Alek's pants and wrapped it around his penis.

Alek swallowed loudly, and not just from the cold hand on his dick.

He had known Darwinists were plain-spoken on the subject of biology, to the point of being vulgar...but _this_ was something he hadn't seen coming.

He'd contemplated the possibility, of course. God's wounds, he'd been dreaming of it practically once a week since he'd found out Deryn's secret. Dark, sinful dreams that made him want to spew when he awoke, but at the same time wanted to enact the moment he got the chance.

But, like the prince he had still been at that time, he'd resisted the urge too. Even when Deryn tore up her knee in Mexico and relied on him to help with almost everything. Even though she'd probably have been quite eager for a chance to get her mind off her predicament. Taking advantage of her wouldn't have been proper, after all. Certainly not the way for the prince he had been at the time to act. The proper way, and the one that he'd learned (which Deryn would undoubtedly title "the daft princely Clanker approach" if she ever knew of it) was kissing till marriage, then sex.

Which, as he could now plainly see (and feel) was the complete opposite of the Darwinist approach, which (he'd pieced together from his experience over the last couple months) was a metric ton of very vocal, petting-filled kissing, then straight to love-making. Which made a lot of sense. Darwinists were quite well rehearsed on the subject of biology, be it some beastie or human. That was practically what their civilisation had been built on; he'd learned that from Dr. Barlow during the crash-course she'd given him on Darwinist principals as part of his acceptance into the Zoological Society. Not that he really needed to be told it.

What he hadn't know was that most everything not only Darwinists but every human on the planet did basically revolved around their godless "life chains" and the passing on of them from one generation to another. It was written in the life chains themselves, a code that secretively and subtly overrode everything else in times of extreme stress.

The passing of the life chains was what "intercourse" (as Barlow had called it during the rather long lecture on human reproduction Alek had been forced to sit through) was for.

That overriding code certainly explained some of Deryn's recent behaviour.

Why she'd started to wear rather loose, revealing nightshirts and other such clothing when he was around during the first couple weeks of their relationship (though she blamed it on doctor's orders to keep strain off her still-injured knee until it healed more by wearing things easy to get into and out of).

Or how she kept using him as a crutch whenever possible, despite the fact that said knee was healing fine, and holding onto more of him that was really necessary for movement when he always agreed.

Or how she allowed herself to "get caught" changing by him, something she'd never done before her secret had slipped out.

Or her tendency to get rather physical and vocal whenever they "snogged", as she called it, to the point where Alek had become worried to leave Bovril in the same room with them lest it repeat something embarrassing. They'd almost been compromised by it before.

Or the rather...erotic pictures that had begun to fill her sketchbook in the last week or two, ones that Alek had both wanted to burn and to look at forever whenever he secretly flipped through it-

"Oi, Alek! You lost or something?" Deryn asked, her clart-snarfing grin returning. She'd taken his long pause of contemplation as the result of a Clanker-based understanding of biology; that being none at all.

Alek was jerked free of his thoughts, and his resolve snapped into place like a well-designed engine replacement part.

"Never." He replied defiantly.

Deryn chuckled and gave his manhood a short pull, causing Alek to gasp and the organ to stiffen slightly.

In vengeance, Alek slipped his hand down her own pants and gave her dorsal side a hard squeeze. Deryn gasped in turn, and then just smiled again.

"Then stop talking and get to rogering me, _Dummkpof.__" _She growled, letting Alek go.

In that second, an unofficial race started; whoever got bare first won. Alek quickly scrambled out of his coat, shirt, boots and socks, only slowed down when Deryn accidentally tossed her shirt onto his head in her own rush to get out of her clothes.

The shirt itself wasn't what slowed him. It was the scent that permeated the fabric. That of Deryn herself, hidden under a mixture of sweat, fabricated cotton, rum, bat and hawk clart, and a hint of engine grease. But still detectable.

And strong enough to make Alek's knees go weak and his head spin with a single breath. In haste, he tossed the shirt away and continued undressing.

But the slowing by the shirt was enough; Deryn beat him to the punch despite still having a semi-bad knee even six months after she'd crashed (though it was closed to being completely healed), tossing away the last of her clothes while he was still fumbling with his belt. After noting this, the girl grabbed the front of the offending leather strap and pulled, hard enough to break the leather with a loud _snap_ and make Alek's trousers fall to his ankles. She paused to look at the broken leather, giving Alek precious seconds to gaze over her now-nude body.

He spent those seconds well.

His eyes travelled up and down Deryn, taking in every inch of her. The slight curves of her neck, back, and hips, tanned skin standing out against the parts of her normally covered by her uniform, her "diddies", as she had called them, smaller than he had imagined (but undeniably still growing, as Deryn had complained of on several occasions) yet still attractive to his eyes, nipples jutting out from round flesh like rivets on a walker's armor. The tiny patch of gold hairs sprouting between her legs, glinting damply in the fading light. The discoloured area of skin on her left knee where the compress had been removed and the angry red splotch in it's center that was all that remained of the injury the compress treated. The still-fading scar on her arm from the same crash that had torn her knee. The small, dark smirk of her mouth that said she knew he was looking her over and didn't mind it at all.

If he'd had any lingering doubts that Deryn Sharp was really a girl, they were pretty much eradicated.

Absentmindedly, he kicked his pants off into some random corner, sending his underwear with them in the same motion. Cold, high-altitude air chilled his bare skin, sending shivers up and down his spine, and his manhood hardened quicker in response to both temperature and Deryn.

"Guess it wasn't fabricated leather." She noted, tossing the broken belt away. Alek noticed her eyes flick down to his cock, then back up. Before he could respond or react to either thing, Deryn grabbed his arm, pulled him close to her, and started leading the way towards one of the two bunks in the room.

Alek's skin tingled like he'd been hit with a Tesla Cannon. It didn't help that, with every step, his dick brushed against Deryn's bare skin, making it harder by the second.

"So, how do you want to do this?" Deryn asked in a rather innocent voice, like she was discussing the weather. "Unbroken airbeast? Submissive caninesque? Passionate beasties?"

"Uh..." Alek replied. His head was suddenly full of cotton fluff, like that night a months ago when Volger and his men had taken him from the palace. Quite honestly, he didn't have the slightest idea what Deryn was talking about.

He was about to say so when _another_ voice cut him off, coming from behind Deryn.

"Passionate beasties." It said.

Deryn spun around in horror, her movement forcing one of her nipples across Alek's chest, sending a shiver through him like an elektric current. Alek suppressed a sudden urge to squeeze Deryn's diddies in retribution and looked up as well.

Sitting on the bed, rather contentedly, was Bovril the perspicacious loris. The creature blinked it large eyes at the two, said "barking spiders", and then chuckled to itself.

Alek glanced at Deryn, frozen in surprise. Alek was pretty sure he hadn't seen the loris when he'd entered the room. It must have heard them talking and snuck onto the bed while they were busy with each other, probably through the message lizard tubes above them. It had practically grown up on this airship, after all.

But how long had Bovril been there, watching them? What had it heard? This was-

-Solved quickly by Deryn, who grabbed Bovril with surprising force by the back of it's neck (prompting it to make a noise like Dr. Barlow when she was unhappy with something), hurried to the door, and dropped the beastie out into the hall before slamming said door shut and bolting it closed with the lock Dr. Barlow had let her install to help protect her secret, back before they'd first left the Leviathan. Being the good doctor's assistants _did_ have perks, after all.

Alek watched all of this silently, eyes locked on Deryn's bare form.

_Verdammt_, she was sexy even just throwing that godless beast out the door!

As he watched, more blood rushed into his member, hardening it further. His heart felt like it wanted out of his ribs.

Deryn let out a deep breath and leaned against the door, breathing heavy and ragged. Alek could see, even from here, that the rapid movement had upset the still-healing ligaments in her knee. They still caused her trouble some times; Dr. Busk had said it could take up to a year, maybe longer, for her to completely heal.

He could see that easily now; her left leg was shaking slightly, and her eyes and fists were clenched tight.

But it had also given her body a rather attractive sheen of sweat, and every panting breath she pulled in caused her diddies to move slightly...

"Well, let's just hope it didn't hear too much, eh?" Deryn gasped.

"Let's hope. But don't you think that was a little...harsh?" Alek asked quietly in response, raising an eyebrow. He had to admit, he'd never seen Deryn Sharp act so brutally against a fabricated creature. Though in all honesty, he probably would have done worse to it in this situation...

But the question was more of a comfort thing, to get Deryn's mind off her torn knee and back to him.

"Aye, maybe a squick. But we can't be too careful, can we?" Deryn agreed. Her fists relaxed and she wiped her forehead. She looked up, and Alek noticed that there was a smile on her face. A real, happy one now, not the crazed one of earlier. She seemed calmer now, Alek realised. And clearer headed; perhaps she wasn't as drunk as he'd first thought.

And he could easily figure out what filled the place of intoxication; part of her strange earlier actions had been nothing but fear relating to the all-too-noticeable battle that had engulfed them. Now that she was more consumed with the possibility of having Alek take her virginity than the one of being blown apart, she was more of her old self again.

Now that he thought of it, Alek realised that he'd forgotten the battle too. He paused for a moment, listening and glancing over his shoulder, out the windows. The sounds of mad aerial combat had greatly diminished, but they were still there, and the sky was still lit with fire. The possibility of dying by exploding hydrogen breather was still present, but reduced substantially.

Strangely, he found himself being glad that the fighting was still going. He knew he should be horrified. Those were his fellow countrymen, his could-have-been subjects, out there being killed.

But all he connect the battle too was the fact that Deryn Sharp, the boy he had admired and now the girl that he loved, was currently nude in front of him, practically begging to be taken...

"Yes, you can never be to careful with those lorises." He said, answering Deryn's earlier question. "They are bum-rags, after all."

"Aye, that they are." Deryn smiled wider, and actually giggled. The sound brought a smile to Alek's own face.

"But now that Bovril's gone..." She continued, her smile taking on a seductive undertone. "Let's try this again, shall we?"

"Yes, let's." Alek said. Or that's what he meant to say. Instead, before he could get the "let's" out, Deryn started walking towards him with what he could only describe as a "seductive swagger" and what came out of Alek's mouth was "legs."

"Aye." Deryn agreed, smiling evilly and exaggerating her walk to the point that, had Lilit ever seen it, she probably would have done more than just kiss Deryn when they had parted on that cliff back in Istanbul. "I have legs."

"Really really nice legs." Alek stuttered out. As Deryn approached, he found himself unable to stop. "And hair. And eyes. And breasts-"

"Aye, I'm a lass too." Deryn paused, close enough now that Alek could see his own reflection in her eyes. Those strange, hypnotic blue eyes of hers...

Deryn giggled again and pressed her leg against his, rubbing along it like a cat.

"But are you just going to compliment my diddies, or are you going to put those Clanker fingers of yours to better use than tinkering with machines?"

Alek glanced down, gazing again over Deryn's body. In the back of his mind he knew Deryn had just given him a green light to do basically whatever he wanted with her. Joy lit in his chest that the girl trusted him that much.

He decided to reward her trust by not doing anything extreme. Not just yet, anyway.

Though some of that was his own worries. The mere thought of actually putting himself inside Deryn made his head feel like when he'd smashed it on the spine.

For that, he was glad that Bovril had interrupted their earlier attempt at love making. Now he had a chance to do it at his own pace, not the one that Deryn's fear-filled mind had set.

Of course, he had to start somewhere...

His eyes locked on Deryn's diddies, nipples hardened with arousal and cold. He noticed there was a light dusting of freckles across their tops, which he found rather attractive. It offered a strange sort of innocence to Deryn.

A sudden thought struck him; he wouldn't be the first person to feel Deryn's diddies. Volger, Dr. Barlow, that doctor in Mexico who sewed up her wound...

God's wounds, he realised. He was her boyfriend (he supposed) and he hadn't done that yet!

Slowly, he reaching up a slightly trembling, unsure hand to gently caress Deryn's right breast, the barest feather-like touch in case Deryn recoiled for some reason.

But she only let out an involuntary gasp, which formed into a drawn-out "yes" as Alek stroked the side of her a little harder.

Taking her sigh of pleasure as encouragement, Alek grew bolder, letting his whole hand run across the round flesh of Deryn's chest. His fingers encircled, cupping it gently, his thumb running across the dark area around her nipple, fingernails scrapping firm, still-developing flesh. Shivers coursed up his back and down his arms.

Deryn gasped and hissed and sighed in response, obviously enjoying the contact. Both her knees threatened to give out, so she slid her hands into Alek's hair, digging into his scalp to hold herself and pulling herself closer to him at the same time, forehead touching his. She gasped out something that sounded like "more".

Alek obliged gladly, raising his other hand to it's matching teat and echoing his original movements there. He ran his thumb over one of her nipples, earning the loudest noise from her yet.

"Barking spiders." She muttered.

Intrigued, Alek repeated the motion. Deryn keened and gasped.

A dark thought sprouted in Alek's mind. He would do something better than all those other people who had felt up Deryn...

He dropped his hands from Deryn's chest. Deryn made a guttural noise of complaint and started to tell him to keep going, but Alek cut her off by wrapping his arm around he back, pulling her close, and sucking her right nipple into his mouth.

The action made his head spin, first with surprise at himself, and then with the sudden wash of Deryn's scent that filled his head as he sucked on her nipple, followed quickly by the sudden shock of tasting a part of her other than her lips and neck for the first time.

Despite the situation, he found himself remembering a time in one of his tutoring sessions when he'd sucked on the eraser of a pencil out of boredom. Deryn's nipple was strangely like that...except it tasted much, much better.

Deryn let out a rather girly gasp and threw her head back, giving Alek further access to her chest. Alek took full advantage of it, sucking and pulling at Deryn's nipple with his teeth and using his hand to toy with the other.

Deryn writhed under him, body contorting in time to the shocks of pleasure Alek was sending through her. He knees snapped together, and as Alek shifted one of his legs slightly under her so he could get at her diddies better with his mouth, he noticed the space between her legs was dripping.

"Uh...ah...I think...oh...we're ready...guh...for the next part...hur...of this manoeuvre..." Deryn gasped out. Alek (reluctantly) pulled himself away from her delicious diddies and gave her a dark smile.

"Not quite," he whispered. Deryn looked at him quizzically, and then in a mixture of shock, surprise, and pleasure as Alek dropped his right hand between her legs and stuck his middle finger inside her crotch. Just a couple centimetres, but enough for Deryn to feel it.

After a moment (during which most of Deryn's major mental functions seemed to shut down) he pulled his finger back and examined it.

The probing hadn't just been to practically drive Deryn out of her attic, thought that was certainly a bonus. Alek had also been testing himself, seeing how his body would react to sticking more than just his finger inside her.

Alek glanced at his finger, silvery with Deryn's girly juices. He didn't feel anything. Not dizzy, not nauseous, none of the bizarre feelings from earlier. To prove it to himself, he stuck the digit in his mouth. Nothing except a sudden weakness in the knees at tasting Deryn.

"Now we're ready, _Mr._ Sharp." He said softly.

Deryn grinned brilliantly at him through a heated face. She looked shy, another thing Alek had never seen her. But, he supposed, even bad ass, tomboyish Deryn could act like a girl when naked in front of the boy she loved.

That random thought sparked another, not so random one;

The whole point of the last couple minutes had been to prepare themselves for the act of intercourse. The point of intercourse was to incite reproduction to pass on the life chains of the partners to the next generation.

And in regards to Deryn and his current situation, reproduction was an unwanted consequence.

"Deryn, are-" Alek stopped, his throat suddenly closing around his words. A Darwinist he may have been on paper, but his mind and body still believed him a Clanker. He was quite obviously ready to actually have sex with her. He wasn't ready to discuss what might come of it.

Unable to force the words out, Alek simply pointed down at Deryn's midriff, in the area he hoped covered her womb. He knew how _this_ worked quite well, thanks to Dr. Barlow.

Deryn followed his finger, confused. Then realisation replaced it, her female mind easily filling in the blanks.

"Worried about knocking me up, are you?" She said, a smile tugging at her mouth like she thought the subject was funny. "Still a daft prince at heart then."

Without another word, she pointed at her right shoulder. Or, more accurately, the small skin-colored patch of fabric that was adhered there that Alek had failed to notice. At least, he _thought_ it was fabric...

"Contraceptive compress." Deryn explained, noticing the blank look on Alek's face. "Dr. Barlow made me start wearing it to "regulate my menstrual cycle" when I joined up. It stops all that biological yakkum dead in its tracks. Hard to pretend to be a boy if I get cramps and start bleeding from the crotch every month." She paused, and her eyes took on a sudden glitter, the same one she used to get when she was ordered onto the spine by Mr. Rigby, back when she was still a middy. "And she said it prevented any 'unwanted reproductive complications, should intercourse occur.' She said that's part of the reason she wears one."

"I see." Alek muttered, though he truly didn't. Deryn seemed to see that as well.

"It means we can shag till we pass out and nothing'll come of it, you sodding Clanker."

"Ah." Alek said. It was more of a one-note exhalation than an actual word. It was getting harder to think, most of his higher thoughts slowly being eaten away by a building pressure in his mind, one that screamed to fuck Deryn until she did pass out, all consequences be damned. His body was responding to that pressure, biology going into overdrive; heart racing, lungs straining for every ounce of air he could get, dick hardening to an almost painful point.

He didn't remember moving; one moment, he was thinking what Deryn had said over. The next, he was holding her, gently shoving her further back onto the bunk she sat on. He was glad that the bunk was so low; this would have never worked if it wasn't, Deryn being taller than he was.

The girl let out a surprised gasp at his sudden action, which quickly turned into a moan as her body recognised the beginning stage of intercourse and the life chains took control. She pulled at Alek, trying to get him onto the bunk with her. Alek shook her off gently.

"Caninesque it is." She whispered to herself, lying back. Apparently, what she'd been asking earlier was the position that they were going to shag in.

Alek didn't care if what he was going to do had a title. All he knew was this; if he was going to mate with Deryn Sharp, he was going to do it standing up. Why he couldn't say. It just felt right, and the very thought of it sent a surge of pleasure through his mind.

Perhaps it was the pure primitiveness in it, the male presiding over the submissive female, very much in line with the Darwinist Alek wished to be.

Deryn certainly wasn't complaining about it. If anything, she was helping, pivoting her hips slightly up towards him with a soft moan of anticipation, as if offering her slit for his approval.

Alek noticed a sudden blush creep into Deryn's face, something he'd never seen on the girl.

But a quick glance down at Deryn's now exposed sex made Alek's face burn just as much.

This close, Alek could see every detail of her female parts. Complex folds of red, damp flesh crowed at the top by a patch of hair and a small nub of flesh that poked out above everything else.

Strangely, even at this point, his Clanker mind still worked. It ran through calculations, comparing the size of his manhood and Deryn's opening, and finally figured out there was very little way for him to fit inside her.

The recently acquired Darwinist part disagreed, and made it very clear to the Clanker part that he was going to fit inside Deryn even if he had to break the girl in half.

Deryn seemed to be thinking along similar lines. She was currently staring down over her own nethers at Alek's erect manhood, her eyes flicking back and forth between them. After a moment, she bit her bottom lip, a move that Alek found rather attractive for some bizarre reason.

"Alek?" She asked nervously.

"Yes? What is it?"

"Can you promise me something?"

"Of course. Anything for you." Alek answered her without thinking. There really wasn't much to think about; he'd already promised not to lie to her again, and to lie to keep her secret. He'd given up his country for her. What was one more promise?

"When you start, whatever happens, whatever I say…_don__'__t__ barking __stop_."

Alek locked eyes with her for a long moment.

"Aye." He said finally, answering as she would have.

Deryn gave him a smile, a sort of soft, dreamy one that seemed to say _here__ goes__ nothing_.

"Then go for it." She whispered.

So Alek did, with a single, brutal thrust.

His first truly Darwinist contact with Deryn was strangely like the night he'd stopped Goliath all those months back. The moment his manhood slipped inside her, a jolt shot through him, like the one Tesla had used against him. But this jolt felt _good_. The jolt drove him on, making his muscles hitch and forcing himself completely inside Deryn, so close that he could feel her legs pressed against his hips.

Deryn let out what sounded like a combination strangled gasp and moan, followed by a sharp cry and a pained look on her face that coincided with Alek feeling something give under the pressure of his cock. He noticed tears spring to her eyes, tiny droplets that she fought to contain.

Normally, Alek would have stopped at this point, retreated back and investigated. Checked to see if Deryn was alright, then continued. But he'd just made a promise to Deryn, and he intended to keep it, like every other one he'd made. So, despite the slight misgivings he had, he _didn__'__t__ barking __stop_.

He drew back, body moving more on instinct than conscious thought. Deryn let out another cry, but this one seemed more of loss than pain. It was cut off by a sudden exclamation of "oh!" as Alek slid himself back in.

"Blisters, you're as big as a barking tigeresque!" Deryn whispered, gazing down at their coupled loins. The tears she'd held back tricked unnoticed out the sides of her eyes and into her hair.

Rather neutrally, Alek noticed he could see his manhood deforming the soft lines of Deryn's front. He slid out again, eliciting yet another gasp from the beautiful Darwinist under him.

"Well, it helps that you're so damn tight," Alek replied. He found it suddenly easy to talk dirty like this, as if he'd learned sex talk along with Latin and French and Italian during his studies. His thrusts continued, slow and easy. "You're like a walker fuel line."

"Aye, you would know!" Deryn shot back, voice raising and lowering in pitch in time with Alek's relative position within her. "You Clankers love your machines so much you must sha-"

The rest of her sentence deteriorated into a cry of joy as Alek added a bit more force to his next thrust. Deryn thrust back in revenge, grabbing the edges of the bunk she lay on and using it to press herself against Alek's manhood.

Alek smiled a little. _This_ was why he loved Deryn Sharp. Any other girl probably would have just laid there and taken him. Deryn gave as much as she took.

"That the best you got, you bloody _Dummkpof_?" Deryn spat at him, eyes squeezed shut and neck arching up. Her boyish swagger had returned, and she seemed herself again. "Do your worst!"

Alek, feeling more confident that he hadn't done anything bad to Deryn, retaliated, increasing his force and decreasing the duration of his thrusts, making Deryn cry out with every impact and gasp when he pulled back. Her whole body rocked with the motion, so that she not only had to press her hands against the bunk but also hang onto it, lest Alek drag her off it onto the floor. Their connection was so tight that the motion of one transferred easily into the other. It was a wonder they could move at all.

"Alek..." Deryn groaned out, ending the last syllable with a gasp.

"Enjoying yourself?" Alek asked through clenched teeth. The heat from her insides seemed to be slowly melting his brain.

"Aye!" Deryn shouted the word out, responding in the same moment Alek drove himself deep into her.

Alek's only replies were some grunts and his own gasps as Deryn's snatch pressed on his cock like it had a mind of his own, sending jolts of lightning up his legs and spine every time he moved within Deryn. Her scent permeated the air, blotting out everything.

She was obviously in a similar state. Her breath came in gasps now, tongue hanging out like like Tazza's after a long run. She seemed to be regressing the longer they moved together, her mental functions dropping back into whatever original form humans had evolved from.

And Alek found he _liked_ that thought.

On a sudden whim, he moved his hands from Deryn's legs, where the had been resting since they had begun making love, to her hips, pulling her still closer to him.

Deryn let out a pleasurable sounding moan, which Alek took as encouragement. She inhaled deeply and gasped out "yes oh yes barking yes please" all in one sentence, without pausing, like she'd forgotten how to speak right.

Alek was feeling the same thing. He tried to say something, even just something simple like "certainly", but nothing came out. So he settled for a chuckle and drove himself even harder, mating with Deryn with enough force to move the girl a good inch towards and away from the wall behind the bunk with every thrust. His arms held her steady, so that even when he drew back he never truly pulled out.

Deryn gasped and groaned in time with his movement and gave up holding onto the bunk. Instead, she latched on to Alek's arms, recreating with her hands the pressure that was squeezing Alek's manhood at the same time. Her body moved easily, diddies rolling slightly with the motion of their love.

The pressure on his arms made Alek's legs go weak and sent a burst of light across his eyes.

He knew, somehow, when they did this again (he had no doubt that they would) _this _would be the way they would do it.

He noticed a strange, pleasurable burning feeling building in the area below his navel, growing with every second. He could guess what it was, and it sent a mixture of joy and a strange sadness. He didn't want his to end, but the Clanker part of his mind knew that, eventually, it must.

But, if it was, he wanted Deryn to climax before him.

He could tell she was close. She looked almost brain-dead from pleasure. Drool was sliding down the side of her mouth and off her tongue, still hanging slightly from her lips.

She'd gone quieter too. Earlier she'd been screaming and crying and gasping, but now she was making a sort of cooing noise.

Alek slowed, muscles screaming from the exertion he'd just put them through. But he didn't stop. His motion continued, a slow, easy pace that almost felt better than the rapid impacts of before.

"Alek." Deryn groaned out. Her voice was soft, almost lost sounding. Like she wasn't aware of what she was saying. "I...I..."

Alek didn't bother to respond. He just leaned over, locking eyes with Deryn.

The world seemed to stop. All sound faded out, leaving nothing but the twin, synchronised beats of their hearts and their breathing.

"I love you." Deryn finished.

And everything came rushing back, and Deryn's resistance broke.

She came, body stiffening under Alek's hands, eyes closing, back arching upward, fingers clutching at his arms hard enough to leave welts. Her cunt clamped down hard enough to make Alek worry she'd snap his manhood clean off.

But despite this, she was silent, her orgasm consuming everything from her, even her power of speech.

Alek resisted for only a moment longer, before the sight of her climax and the pressure on his body triggered his own.

It was glorious; a sudden rush of pleasure and joy that made him reel, body clenching up. White light blinded him, wiping out all other feelings except his lover's skin against his. He pulled Deryn still closer to him, gripping her arms as hard as she gripped his. He felt his seed, his life chains, coating Deryn's channel, lighting a strange fire of contentment in his pleasure-slack mind.

She was _his_. Finally, all his.

His legs sagged, and for a moment he slipped free of her. His climax continued unabated, and before he could stop a single burst of white arched from him onto Deryn's face.

It seemed to last forever, but it was probably only about a minute. Slowly, Alek regain feeling in his body. His legs ached, his back burned, and his arms stung from where Deryn had gripped him, but he felt _alive_.

He let himself sink onto the bunk, careful not to land on Deryn. He relaxed, enjoying the lingering remains of his orgasmic bliss.

Silence filled the midshipman's quarters. Nothing except for the ragged breathing of Deryn next to him and Alek's own heaving lungs.

Nothing at all. Alek heaved himself up to look out the window. The sky was a deep purple, like a bruise. The only light came from the quickly-receding fires of the battle, now a good couple kilometres away. A new sound could be heard from outside; the grumble of the former-Stormwalker engines that still powered the airbeast. They'd be fixed.

Alek sank back down, unable to hold in a smile. He'd just shagged Deryn Sharp, and lived through a battle too boot.

Speaking of Deryn...

He glanced over at the girl. She was out cold. Her body was still, the only sign that she was still alive the slow rise and fall of her chest. His life chains glistened like a tiny pearl on her cheek.

Alek decided to leave her, and on a whim grabbed his jacket from its place in the corner of the room and draped it over her form. He contemplated wiping his seed, but decided it wasn't worth waking her up for it. And, admittedly, it looked strangely beautiful...

instead he lay back down, tired but unwilling to sleep. Perhaps he could just lie with Deryn...

Thankfully, fate seemed to have something in store for him. A message lizard crawled from one of the overhead tubes.

"Alek," it spoke with the voice of Dr. Barlow. "At your earliest convenience, could you come to the port engine? Mr. Hirst requests you assistance with it."

There was a pause, and Alek almost expected the lizard to tilt its head to the side in thought.

"Also, have you seen Mr. Sharp? He seems to have vanished."

"Yes Doctor. I'll be right there." Alek looked back at Deryn, then up at the lizard. "And Mr. Sharp is in the middies quarters. He seems to be asleep. I think the battle was too much for him. I think it would be best not to wake him until we're further from the fight. End message."

The lizard scurried away, and Alek gave a groan. He rose and started to get dressed, looking back at Deryn as he did.

There were few things more beautiful than a sleeping midshipman, he decided. Especially one with his life chains on her cheek.

He finished dressing and, before he left, knelt down next to Deryn's ear and whispered;

_Beweis genug für Sie?_

That proof enough for you?


End file.
